So you also think we should first let the students work with Mathematica/Maple and later with a pocket calculator? Oh and let's not even think about long division on paper... They'd never understand and it's pointless, right?
class HelloWorldApp {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World!"); // Display the string.
}
}Transcript show: 'hello world!'
I guess you could do either... It depends whether you want them to be really comfortable writing assembly (to make them good embedded system, operating system, driver, or compiler programmers). If you teach C first they'll likely feel horrified for going to a lower level and requiring multiple lines for things they did in a single line in C.
Actually a C for loop already has a pretty confusing syntax the first time you see it. In assembly it's instantly clear where the intitialisation is done, where the loop test is done, where the increment is done, and where the jump back happens. Once they get that it's trivial to understand that a for loop is a handy abstraction instead of a complicated construct.
99% of the time you don't have to know what happens at the lowest level, but it's the other 1% where it can be a lifesaver. Especially when you have a bug, some assembly skills can make it really easy to track down the cause, while at a higher level you might remain clueless and waste hours or days. Debuggers don't show intermediate results and for a release build they don't show the source code at all. I believe that somebody who learned assembly only at a later stage will be less inclined to look at the disassembly.
My twin brother never learned it and he never got further than mediocre application programming. There's nothing really wrong with that except that he's still scared by C programming and he'll likely never work on high-tech projects... I know, it does sound goofy, indeed. But I don't think it's any goofier than Google suddenly talking about "open source graphics drivers"... Where Google is concerned, there is little the company does, or tries, that is based on goofiness, or on much else aside from self-promotion.In a batch file it's just:Bit easier than the Java version!
Hello world!I think that's a generalization. Tons of people have transitioned from C to C++ and created the most impressive software. By the way, good C programmers already structure things into logical objects in C.
The problem with that is that people tend to think -everything- needs to be object-oriented. It easily leads to over-engineering. And over-engineering leads to inefficiency and makes things hard to maintain. If C++ ever makes you stop shuddering, I suggest to read Refactoring to Patterns. It's full of advanced object-oriented techniques, but the author also makes it very clear to look for the simplest possible solution. Even purely procedural programming has a lot of merit. Don't use a Visitor if a switch statement works too. Don't use a polymorphic class if a union is fine.
Wouldn't it be pleasant if it wasn't tedious nor frustrating and you actually understood why some software (fragments) are still written procedurally? Every language and paradigm has its purpose. Another must read is Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming. Object-oriented programming is just one approach, and far from a silver bullet. It has to be used judiciously to reach all goals of a complex project.
How do you know? You've never taken that trajectory. Anyway, for new students I would suggest to transistion to higher-level programming as quickly as possible. Once they're comfortable with assembly, go to C. Once they're comfortable with C, go to C++. Once they're comfortable with C++, go to C#. This way they won't get stuck with low-level reasoning. But they also won't be afraid to go to a lower level to get a better understanding of problems, they'll have a feeling for the reality of performance and memory, and they'll keep things simple.
As far as I'm concerned, for example, there are no situations in which a switch statement is preferable to anything. There are very good reasons why Smalltalk doesn't even have a switch statement.
You obviously have not had to try to get your [ deleted ]-processing code to run at faster than X microseconds per [deleted].We're obviously not going to agree about this.
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that is ... well, those with sense know with which and where we are going.
Could you rephrase that for me, and add Google/NVIDIA/AMD/Microsoft/Intel/Linux where applicable?
